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"When I finally caught him, he was bleeding and was too weak to swim."

The sentence seems awkward to me and I don't know how to rephrase it. I think "was" is kinda redundant but just omitting it doesn't help the sentence much. Any suggestions?

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    You should drop the second "was". Then it reads fine.
    – user3169
    Commented Sep 6, 2015 at 17:22
  • Such ellipsis is quite normal, common and acceptable.
    – Brian Hitchcock
    Commented Sep 7, 2015 at 10:43

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There is no redundancy here. It is perfectly correct. Optionally, if at all you want to shorten the sentence without changing the meaning, you could try this :

"When I finally caught him, he was bleeding and too weak to swim."

But your sentence doesn't have an 'intolerable redundancy issue'. You needn't make any modifications whatsoever. So, you're good to go.

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